IF GOOD FOR ADAM; GOOD FOR MANKIND

The time had come — the midnight hour, so to speak, but near dusk when the Sabbath Day was on the horizon. The Sabbath is a day of rest. All week Jesus had worked hard, even sweating as if drops of blood. His work was so hard that He asked the Father to take the ‘Cup’ from Himself and give it to another, but that could not be. This very week 1991 years ago was the time the debt for original sin was paid. Good Friday finished many things.

The week was finished for Jesus wherein the trials had been hard. The crowd had gone from adoring Him on Palm Sunday to cheering for His death on Friday. Not only that, but His purpose had come to its conclusion.

To the Serpent God had said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).

That was finished on Golgotha — ‘The Place of the Skull,’ or more precisely, Calvariae Locus in the Latin; in English Calvary — ‘The Place of the Cranium.’

Whose cranium? Adam’s, according to early sacred writings. Seth and Melchizedek are believed to have placed the bones of Adam on the Ark and buried them on the sacred mountain. Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:3) as Jesus bowed His head toward Adam’s bones, and gave up the Ghost.

The enmity was settled. As Isaiah prophesied so long before, “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed” (Isa 53:5).

Something else was finished — the only perfect man ever was bruised just as God had told Adam and Eve. His bruising finally came, and blood sprinkled the ground (adama in the Hebrew) and the sins of all mankind since the beginning were paid.

Adam was there, perhaps even in spirit as well as bones, as Matthew saw it; “The graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose” (Mat 27:52). The first ‘saint’ was Adam on whom God had put on a coat of skin (Gen 3:17). Surely, Adam arose on what is now called ‘Easter Sunday’ with Jesus. Many people would have seen him and understood. Adam’s sins were paid, and his debt was finished. Adam was de-glorified with sin but on this day 1991 years ago, it was ‘Good Sunday’ for him.

True to God’s Word, the heel of Jesus was bruised but He was not all the way dead. The penalty for sin was not that Adam would “surely die” (Gen 2:17), but literally “die, die, die.” By grace, Adam died in the flesh, but his mind and soul would live on because God covered both him and his wife with what I believe is the ‘whole armor of God’ — the ‘Garment of Adam’ as those coats were called.

Finally, God concluded the Edenic Covenant; God had set forth Jesus, “to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Rom 3:25).

You surely have missed something in that passage. The Blood of Jesus from His bruising took away past sins. Not only your past sins, but the past sins of all who came before the crucifixion. The Blood of Jesus remitted the original sin of Adam and Adam was even there to be reglorified to return to Paradise that same day as Jesus.

Finishing the miracle, “The graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after His resurrection” (Mat 27:52-53).

It was a great day for Adam. Adam was resurrected. His soul was kept safe all those millennia and when Jesus rose, Adam arose in the flesh in the same manner as Jesus. “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). Jesus quickened, or made alive again, the man Adam. Jesus fulfilled the Edenic Covenant as Jesus resurrected Adam with Him!

If Adam can arise because of the Promise of the Word, so can Adam’s kind. Because Adam arose, whosoever believes in Jesus can as well. The payment was made for Adam’s sin and since sin is genetic in the nuclear cells of mankind, Jesus fixed the Image that had been in Adam and made Him glorious again.

Jesus justified Adam and since we are genetic sons of Adam, our sins were justified as well. As Jesus was glorified (John 7:39), Adam was glorified (Mat 27:53), and we too, for those in Christ, shall be glorified. Adam, thanks to Jesus, who once came short of the glory of God, no longer comes short because the Blood of Jesus corrected the sins of Adam; and can our own as well.

Jesus had to die to reveal life after death. He had to die to be born again. Jesus did not come from His mother’s womb the second time, but from the ‘womb of Adam’ — the ground. The Resurrection of our Lord was Him being reborn. The Spirit of God escaped death as Jesus gave up the Ghost. God still lived through it all! As such, the Ghost of Jesus was the quickening Spirit that God breathed into the Man, Jesus, to Regenerate Him as He was re-erected — Resurrected. His so-called bruised cup was repaired and again held the Spirit of God.

Are you in search of the silver chalice? Look no further. Solomon called it the ‘golden bowl’ — “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain” (Ecc 12:6). The ‘silver cord’ is life itself. I believe Solomon saw the death of Jesus and that His ‘Cup’ was the “golden bowl’ and the Holy Ghost that left Him was the ‘broken pitcher.” Jesus was the ‘silver chalice’ Himself. We are looking for silver, but Jesus was nothing less than gold as the gifts to Him revealed.

The Resurrection fixed Adam, His “silver cord” (genetics) was taken care of by the reunion of the pitcher (the Living Water emanating from God, the Father) to the golden bowl (God, the Son). The Resurrection of Jesus made so many things that were wrong, right again, and because Adam was resurrected when Jesus paid for his sins long past, we too can be resurrected if we believe the Covenant of Grace.

I left part of the Edenic Covenant incomplete. Truly, the head of Jesus was bruised, even covered by thorns, but the head of the Serpent was crushed when Jesus’s heel was bruised; Judas with Satan in him perished, perhaps that same day, and indeed the heel of Jesus was surely bruised as he stood for hours on Calvary — the ‘footstool’ of God. That member is called the “suppedaneum” (the underfoot piece). and it would have wreaked havoc on the heel and metatarsal bones of the feet of Jesus.

In summary, the crucifixion of Jesus finished the Edenic Covenant and all those in between. In the Books of Adam and Eve, Adam was promised redemption in 5-1/2 days, or 5500 years, as God explained to him. Adam was redeemed by the propitiation of blood of Jesus for all past sins, and the cross glorified Adam and made him upright again. Then Adam arose with his Savior and the first and last Adam were reunited. So, it can be for all those who believe as well. Be patient’ those quickened by Christ will indeed arise again!

Jesus, unlike the picture, did not ascend alone!